


the hunter’s heart, the hunter’s mouth

by bittennails



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: 'riza escorts kimblee to briggs' au, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Sex, Cunnilingus, F/M, Foe Yay, Gen, Hate Sex, Introspection, Riza POV, Vaginal Fingering, Woman on Top, i just really want to see him get pinned lmao, riza finds kimblee loathesome and sexy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:40:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26657536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittennails/pseuds/bittennails
Summary: Sunset is just brushing the alders along the causeway by the time they leave Bradley’s office, plans for Briggs and the route North hanging heavy on Riza’s back, like a winter chill.AU: Kimblee is released from Central Prison. A reluctant Riza Hawkeye is tasked with escorting him to the North.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Zolf J. Kimblee
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	the hunter’s heart, the hunter’s mouth

Sunset is just brushing the alders along the causeway by the time they leave Bradley’s office, plans for Briggs and the route North hanging heavy on Riza’s back, like a winter chill.

She had seen the release order from across the desk days earlier, but that had been no preparation for that first sight of _him_ sitting in one of the Fuhrer’s pressed-leather armchairs - with that look of kind, deceptive embarrassment, as if he were an old friend who’d stopped in for tea and briefly overstayed their welcome. His sallow skin had glowed eerily under the warm afternoon light streaming into Bradley’s office and he had _smiled_ at her, genially, as she slid her documents into their correct files with her mask of unflappability, unwilling to break his stare. 

Any small shred of wishful thinking that Riza Hawkeye possessed had been destroyed long ago in the desert, but, as she’d closed the metal drawer, she’d allowed herself a moment to think longingly back on that last turn in the corridor, the empty stretch of hallway leading to the office before she had stepped through the doorway and seen him. By the time they took their leave - _“you fought together in Ishval, I hear” Bradley affects dry, grandfatherly affection so well “why don’t you go share war stories before you’re both bogged down by this little errand_ ” - the reality of that dark hair, the sickening velvet manner of speaking, had settled into the base of Riza’s spine with a flash of nauseous gravity that surprised her, even after six years.

The train North departs tomorrow morning and, rather than take the main boulevard to her own apartment - to spend the remainder of her evening digging winter boots from boxes - Riza walks alongside the Crimson Lotus alchemist, the Butcher of Ishval. Their steps echo in tandem across the empty side street in one of Central’s more fashionable neighborhoods, sweat prickling cold over her tattoo and leather holster as Kimblee hums into the empty bowl of the air. She had weighed the benefits of obeying caution as they ventured past the well-populated boulevards and apartment blocks that make up the majority of inner Central, but a faint curiosity and her iron nerve had only served to push her onward, as they had done so many times before. 

Evening in November hangs amber over Central, casting long shadows from the cypress trees lining the street that spread inky and wavering over the cobblestones. Despite her best efforts, Riza finds her eyes drawn to the sharp line of Kimblee’s profile. Paler, cheeks hollowed out and neck strangely delicate (birdlike, she thinks with slick satisfaction). In Ishval he had developed a noontime habit of laying out on the more intact pieces of rubble like a contented cat, stripped to his undershirt and exuding a pleasure so obvious that it had encroached into indecency.

As they walk alongside the line of fashionable townhouses, she watches him tilt his cheeks up towards the sunset, relishing the winter’s early golden hour. 

A few dark strands have flown free from his ponytail in the chilled wind, and how _strange_ it is, she thinks - the mottled familiarity of those features, the rasp of that voice in the dry, cold air. 

With so many memories of the whipcord muscle Kimblee had maintained in Ishval - those hard shoulders shifting between her inner thighs, the lean strength of his body under her own - Riza draws vague satisfaction from his slight prisoner’s frame, plainly visible under those unfashionably loose winter clothes. 

His rooms are kept warm, even for late autumn, with a surprising familiarity having crept into the living space after only a single day of freedom. A few fine music periodicals are stacked by the fireplace, already dogeared. There are ashes in the hearth, too, perfuming the room with the rich scent of fire and pine. In the kitchen, light from the honey-gold sunset catches on the oiled wooden table where Riza is ushered to sit, as Kimblee waits for the kettle to boil. 

Her wandering eye. A jar of Drachman rosehip jam sits on the countertop by the stove, and she has to shove aside a self-righteous impulse at the sight of it. _The child-killer prefers to drink his black tea the Northern way_ , she nearly thinks, before catching herself. As if _Riza_ has never killed a child. 

_Even more of a mistake that forgetting what he truly is_ , Riza thinks, _would be to forget what I am_. 

Even with his back to her - in his shirtsleeves! how predictably strange that her first time seeing Kimblee after the war would be in a cozy little kitchen, watching him quite nearly putter through his tea-making as she waits to be served - Riza finds herself once again fighting not to stare. Like his eidetic memory, Kimblee had always maintained the highly unsettling, inconvenient talent of sensing a pair of eyes leveled his way. Even when it had been a childish crush, before she truly knew what he was, Cadet Hawkeye had found herself embarrassingly caught out many-a-time in the mess hall. This ability only seemed to improve after they’d really gotten to know one another (after she’d fucked him). 

Some nights, rushing back to her own tent after another hushed conversation with Roy, her eyes would be drawn by some sick anticipation to a dark tent flap or shadowed alcove, only for him to appear out of the darkness, his pale eyes lit with pleased surprise at the sight of Riza, and Riza’s discomfort. How it had frustrated her, at the time, that he had never followed her, but was always there at the exact right moment to meet her eyes in the cool dark. 

And now, she is to take him and guide him through the frozen North. Bandage his wounds and cover his back. Build fires to keep his precious hands from freezing off. 

He measures black tea into the strainer, hands deft, though there’s a tense anticipation in the set of his shoulders. 

“You know, I found it delightful that we'd be working together again.”

Riza swallows. 

“A delight, Sir? High praise.”

“You shouldn’t be so surprised, Riza.” He tenderly spoons the jam into the two teacups on the countertop. Riza can already taste the cloying sweetness on her tongue. “Here I was the entire time, thinking I was being forthright with my intentions.” 

The last time she had seen him outside shackles, she’d let him hike her legs over his shoulders and bury his face between her thighs until she came. The guilty, sticky pleasure of that encounter had left her feeling listless and fucked out for days, even after he’d been sentenced. 

He turns elegantly and sets a teapot on the table with a flourish of black tea-scent. Cinnamon and orange peel. 

“If anything, it will be exhilarating to finally have some excitement, for once.” There’s a chair across the table, but he chooses to sit kitty corner to her. Their knees don’t quite brush together under the table, but she feels the stubborn insinuation of someone warm and _close,_ nevertheless. “As you know, it’s hell to live without stimulation.” 

“Perhaps the firing squad would have been the more humane option, then.” She hates him, oh, she really does. 

“Ha! There she is. I’ve been wondering if you’d develop such a...martial viewpoint, considering your current situation.“ They both take a sip of their tea, so sweet Riza’s teeth hurt. He hasn’t stopped watching her, light eyes gone dark. “You know about the Fuhrer, hmm? What he is? I had wondered why the Hawk’s Eye was doing clerical work. Perhaps I’m not the only one who needs to let off steam.”

Another sip. Sweetness creeps heavily down the back of her throat. So much has changed, she thinks, and still the strangest familiarity to the past. _He still enjoys hearing himself speak, at least as much as he did in Ishval._

“I doubt there’ll be much for me to do, with you hunting.” 

“Really? I’ve read the files. You faced the Ishvalan yourself. In East City.” 

Even with years of careful discipline, Riza only barely conceals her grimace. Of course Bradley would have given him a full briefing - possibly with information not even Riza was privy to, in her own story. 

“If you’ve been briefed, you know how unwise it would be to draw this out, then.” 

“Hmm.” He takes a sip from his cup, pale eyes moving absently over her face. She watches him watch her. “Perhaps you’re right. Although - I’ve only just been let off my leash, Riza. What do you _honestly_ expect me to do?” 

He’s right, of course - he’s been truly let off his leash in every sense of the word, while Riza remains tethered with barely the veneer of control, despite her official status as Kimblee’s security detail. And, truly, what _does_ she expect him to do, based on those old memories of him? 

To be sicked on the world, after so many years in prison - to have his tattooed hands unshackled, to be spirited from the dark hole to this comfortable little nest, provided with a full military pardon and access to his most _useful_ manner of alchemy. 

She knows that, given the opportunity, Kimblee’s going to use their work in the North as an opportunity to make up for lost time. 

He’s going to _relish_ it. 

“I expect you to do what you’ve always done.” There’s no use in lying. Better to be the first to jump. “But move beyond the parameters of this mission, and you know I’ll make it your last.” 

“Oh, I’m counting on it.”

Wind pushes through a cracked-open kitchen window, startling the soft strands of hair that have escaped his ponytail. He shifts the tidy handle of a teacup between his fingers, affecting boredom even as she feels the full weight of his attention leveled at her. He licks his lips. 

“I thought of you in prison, you know.”

_Ah._

Even as she made sure to meet his first glance across Bradley’s office head on, Riza had been keenly, angrily aware of the sweet clench between her legs. She had been enraged, yes, by his presence, but unable to forget what that pale throat had felt like under her strong, small palms, even years after the fact. 

Seated in this cozy home, the lunar array visible on his loosely cupped palm, her reservations unravel. To destroy a hostage would almost certainly disappoint Bradley, despite the Fuhrer’s personal ambivalence towards Riza’s life. She recalls the warm memory of Kimblee’s breath against her neck, and knows that he cannot kill her yet. 

“Surely you didn’t stay so sweet on me, Zolf.”

Eyes narrow, fine boned fingers drum ( _he could be a lovely pianist_ ) across the tabletop. 

“I have to admit, I found your sense of stubborness frustrating, during the war. A strong young soldier, clearly keen enough to have risen through the ranks, but so restrained by that…” he glances absently around the room, as if looking for the right choice of words “...sense of righteousness.” 

Kimblee’s sleeve falls back along his arm, and Riza’s keen eyes catch briefly on a sliver of the dark painful mark that the cuff left behind. It distorts the moment, almost, lowering the sound of his voice to a whisper in her head, suspending the moment in a honey gold, like the worst of her nightmares.

“I pitied you, as much as I could have, but seeing you today, meddlesome enough to find yourself crushed under Bradley’s thumb, I do find myself relieved.” 

The cuff of his sleeve creeps further down, and Riza feels a reluctant throb in her cunt when she catches full sight of the wine-red circles that the alchemical restraints left around his wrists. A flash of pleased recognition passed between them, and she knows that he has caught her quick glance by the leer of his small, sharp teeth. 

“I remember, you know? The weight of you, how vicious I found you - that quiet little sniper who seemed so green, looking down on me with such heat!“

The tea is cold and bitter-sweet in her mouth. They’re sitting impossibly close, she thinks. Indecently. How easy it would be, to reach out and simply bury her callused fingers in the hair at his nape, to pull his head back until his neck arched painfully and that laconic, condescending smile faltered - if only just in his eyes. It would hurt him, but only just enough for his brow to furrow with the annoyance that she used to see, sometimes, when games refused to go his way. 

“It was always such a delight, that ferocity of yours.” 

Under the table, his knee brushes against hers. 

That first night they’d slept together, a storm had fallen over the camp, sand and wind buffeting the canvas walls of his tent. His presence had sent an ice-water prickle of unease through Riza, even as she bore down on him.

Looking down at him, adjusting to his thickness inside her, Riza had found herself wishing that she were a man - could simply flip his body over and kick those hard thighs open. She would relish the soft crush of his hair in her fist and the press of his handsome, terrible face into the cot as she fucked him from behind the way she’d heard men do to one another, every night in the camp. Astride his hard lap, rising up and then sinking down onto his cock, there had been no escaping the nature of him, even when she closed her eyes and focused on the sensation of him inside her, trying (and failing) to think of Roy. 

Riza swallows. 

“And? Did you spend all six years in that cell wanting me to fuck you?” 

He blinks, lazily, unimpressed. 

_That depends, Riza. Have you thought about fucking me?_

Riza has. Thought about fucking Kimblee, that is. Of his dark hair folded between her fingers, that she’d touch herself to the memory of while he languished in prison, shackled (as he deserved). She has half a mind to deny it, has the words already formed in her mouth - _what a despicable assumption_ \- but the crooked smile is already creeping across his face.

The spread of his kitchen table has never seemed so far as it does now, when she reaches a hand out to cup the side of his neck, thumb pushing tight into the pale skin under his jaw, that warm pulse point. Kimblee slumps back for a moment, a tiny, stuttering shift that Riza feels more than sees, his eyes impossibly dark and heavy-lidded, mouth tilting open just enough to reveal a sliver of pink. Kimblee’s palms press into the table, arms spread apart genially to expose the loose layers of that suit, give her access to the softer parts of him, and she knows then that he’s open, _open_. 

“You are despicable.” 

To Riza’s credit, she really does mean it, even as she pulls him up by his neck and crowds him against the doorway. Kimblee just smiles. He’s been wanting this. 

His eyes, the peculiar color of water that spills with amber in the evening sun. She pushes him into the dark hallway, fingers running up his side, over his vest. Even through the fine, soft fabric his ribs press hard under her hand. Close to the surface, easily bruised. 

“I thought about this.” He pinches her nipple through the dark cotton of her shirt, already beading hard beneath her sensible underthings. 

She wrenches him forward with fingers buried into the dark hair at his nape, twisting it between her fingers until he hums with pleasure at the pain.

“And I thought about this.” His hand presses warm into the hollow of her stomach, rubbing small circles into the muscle there - fingertips just barely teasing against her waistband on the downstroke, not quite able to fit underneath. She knows she’s playing into him when she pops the buttons open, but can’t find it in herself to care. One sharp tug of her hand at his wrist, and he’s cupping her through her underthings, feeling the proof of her heresy puddling wet and warm behind the cotton. 

His breath goes ragged, for a moment, at the feel of her slick, fingers stuttering when they shove against her, tracing her. Riza doesn’t realize she’s opened her legs until his fingers are nearly inside her - circling, teasing where she’s most wet. 

“I thought about this, so much, when I was waiting. Thought of what I would do, when I found you.” 

She lets him tug her down the hallway, her feet stuttering against the floorboards when she kicks off her boots and socks. It’s easy to push the fine fabric of his vest and shirt sleeves over his thin shoulders, leaving them crumpled on the floor. They’ll most likely wrinkle, she thinks. 

Good.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Richard Siken’s “Snow and Dirty Rain."
> 
> Comments are love.


End file.
